


Maps

by hopeintheashes



Series: Maps [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Sick!Reid, including Canon-Typical Violence Against Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 20:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16145213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeintheashes/pseuds/hopeintheashes
Summary: Some people have a gravity like the sun, and the way they burn blinds and wounds: the collateral damage of incandescent love. To lose them is to be knocked out of orbit.There are kids going missing in New Hampshire. Reid is not okay. JJ's trying to keep them both from falling apart.Set early in Season 13.





	Maps

**Author's Note:**

> _Globes and maps, they chart your way back home..._  
>  \- Something Corporate

He shakes, now. That’s the first thing. JJ’s not sure whether it happens when his mind is tripping over facts and theories and light-speed revelations, or when it devolves into static. She suspects it’s the latter. Quicksand grinding in the gears.

She’s reaching for him when Emily appears on the balcony, voice set in a way that suggests a hard case in front of them.

“Wheels up in twenty. We’ll brief on the plane. Bring your coat.”

Reid blinks up at Prentiss, like the words are not just foreign but alien, a cipher not even his genius brain can decode. JJ does get a hand on him then, steadying on his shoulder, and he doesn’t flinch.

“Spence?”

“Yeah.” He’s quiet. Far away. “Twenty.”

She knows that he lives on structure and routine, and that Prentiss’ words mean this isn't their usual desk-to-conference-room-to-plane, but a jagged sort of skip to the end, throwing him off balance. Sometimes it’s just that the trip is long, really long, and they need to get in the air; sometimes, there’s truly not a half-hour to spare. Judging by Prentiss’ face, this time it’s the latter.

Reid’s still staring off into the middle distance but she can’t hang back; her routine is efficient and practiced to the point of automaticity, but it still has to get done. Two minutes to finish the email she’d left off mid-sentence; one to sweep the laptop off her desk and into her bag; one to lock her files in the drawer. Three to stop at the bathroom, hitting _call_ on Will’s name as soon as she’s cleared the door, hands still damp from the sink. Three on the phone, just a few logistics and _I love you_ s, go-bag on her shoulder and jacket over her arm as she disconnects. Ten minutes left to get into her seat on the jet that’s a five-minute walk away, leaving five minutes to spare before the flight crew finishes their 20-minute prep. She exhales. She’s good. They’re good.

Simmons is with Spencer now, walking down the hall toward the tarmac with a hand behind Reid’s shoulder in the way that he’s fallen into so easily, a comforting touch here or there, and that’s good. They’re good. They’ll be okay.

. . .  
. . .

“Okay.” Garcia’s on the screen, talking fast, even faster than normal, and there’s a waver in her voice. “Timothy Campbell, age five, from Laconia, New Hampshire. Parents are divorced; he spends half the week with mom, Lauren, and half with dad, Ryan. Normally Ryan would take Timothy to school on Wednesdays and Lauren would pick him up, but Ryan had an early-morning meeting at work so Lauren was going to take over the school run. Lauren got to the house at 7:30 a.m. No one answered the door; Ryan’s phone went straight to voicemail; she let herself in with her copy of the key. No sign of a struggle, but the house was empty and Ryan’s car, wallet, jacket, and keys were missing. After Ryan didn’t show up for work and Timothy didn’t show up for school, local PD got involved; they tried to ping Ryan’s phone, but no dice. They’ve got an Amber Alert out with an APB on the car.”

Tara’s eyebrows are drawn. “That sounds like a familial kidnapping scenario, something you’d see in a custody dispute. Why are we stepping in so quickly?”

Emily sighs. “Lauren and Ryan’s split was reportedly amicable, no complaints from either side about the custody arrangements, but it’s more than that. Five years ago, _exactly_ five years ago, three boys between the ages of 5 and 7 were abducted from that part of New Hampshire over the course of a week. In each case, the boy’s father or step-father was with him. The unsub incapacitated the men using a blitz attack and took the boys. One of the men died of his wounds. The other two survived, but were unable to describe their assailant to the police.”

“I remember hearing about that,” Rossi says. “Parents across New England were terrified that they and their children were going to be next.”

“In each case,” Emily goes on, “The boys’ bodies were found in the White Mountain National Forest. Based on their time of disappearance and the M.E. reports, each boy was held for less than 24 hours before being killed. After the third abduction, the killings suddenly stopped, but there were never any solid leads. The current police chief was on the force five years ago and felt that the leadership at the time waited too long to bring in outside help, so he called us at the first sign that this could be a related case. Given the circumstances, I agreed.”

Simmons turns to the camera connecting them with Garcia. “Twenty-four hours. Where are we in that timeframe?”

It’s Emily who answers. “We don’t know. The last anyone heard from or saw Ryan or Timothy Campbell was 7:00 last night, when they left a fast food restaurant near their home. Security cameras in the parking lot show them driving away in Ryan’s car, but we’ve got nothing after that.”

Alvez is flipping through the casefile on his tablet. “Last seen at 7:00 p.m., discovered to be missing at 7:30 a.m, we’re going to land at 1:00 p.m., so… by the time we get on the ground, we’ll be between five-and-a-half and eighteen hours in.”

“He’s going to die.”

It’s quiet, no more than a murmur that JJ wouldn’t’ve heard if she hadn’t deliberately chosen the seat next to Reid. It’s the sort of thing they all know and never say, and it’s unnerving to hear it out loud. She sneaks a glance, not wanting to draw the others’ attention if they hadn’t heard. He’s washed out in the airplane light, eyes crescent-bruised with lack of sleep, and his hair is starting to curl with sweat at the temples. She can’t tell him he’s wrong, so she doesn’t say anything at all.

“Garcia, we’ve got to narrow down the window when Timothy and Ryan went missing.” Emily again. “Look at traffic cams, activity on Ryan’s phone, anything you can get your hands on.”

“The eyes of the city shall be mine.” A flourish of feather-topped pen, and the screen cuts out.

. . .  
. . .

It’s an hour-and-a-half flight, maybe shorter, and every moment of that is spent on the case. After some heated back-and-forth that JJ is only distantly privy to, it’s determined that they have to land in Concord, not Lanconia, whose single runway is unavailable for reasons she hasn’t quite figured out. The upshot is forty minutes in the car once they’ve hit the ground instead of the hoped-for fifteen. The tension in the cabin ticks up at the news. Reid’s been alternating between hypomanic bursts of facts and figures and something like catatonia; reading through the casefile at impossible speed and processing, processing. Lewis and Rossi are reviewing the profile from the last set of murders five years ago. Alvez and Simmons are pouring over a map, comparing locations of abductions and body dumps. Prentiss is on the phone with the local PD, arranging for cars to meet them in Concord. JJ is back on videochat with Garcia, trying to narrow down where Ryan could be.

“In all three previous cases, the fathers were found quickly, in relatively well-travelled areas. Now, there’s no sign of him.” Garcia’s settled back into her role as chief information-getter, but JJ can feel the worry pressing in at the edges. It’s pushing through the cracks of her mind, too. She keeps getting these flashes of Henry at five, at seven; now, at nine, gazing through the slats of his baby brother’s crib, awestruck and innocent, Will watching over both of them. She blinks, and swallows, and shuts the door on the scene. Turns back to the case.

“The unsub must know that round two will be riskier.” She’s thinking out loud, bouncing ideas off of Penelope, who’s nodding. “He’ll want to keep us off his trail for as long as possible.”

“I just need to know— where is that” —Garcia growls— “car?” The profanity is implied.

JJ’s about to respond in helpless sympathy when word comes back from the pilot - they’re landing. Expertly, practiced, all of the files go into bags. Laptops follow. Seatbelts on. Brace for touchdown.

They’re met by police department SUVs. Some quick, wordless sorting puts JJ in the middle-back of one of them, between Simmons and Reid. Rossi is up front, conferring with their driver, an officer in green and khaki. Simmons is on his phone, using the few minutes of limbo to text his wife.

Reid’s breathing shallow and fast beside her as they fly down the road, lights on, sirens off. He’s gone so pale he’s almost grey. She can’t read him the way she could when he was younger, more open and innocent, but even now she knows what _wrong_ looks like.

“Hey.” Close and quiet. Trying not to spook.

“I’m okay.” Eyes fixed front. Like he can maybe convince himself it’s true.

There’s a moment of internal debate about whether to push the issue. What wins out is the knowledge that once they reach the police station, they’re going to hit the ground sprinting, and there won’t be another chance. She keeps her voice gentle.

“You don’t look okay.” Pitched low, so the others won’t hear over the highway noise.

He’s silent.

“Talk to me, Spence.” She’s got a decade and a half of pull with the kid, and it’s a card she doesn’t play often. Another moment of silent resistance, and then he gives in with a sort of slumping full-body surrender that takes her breath away.

“Woke up feeling like shit. Still feel like shit. I have a headache and I kind of feel like I’m going to puke, and this—” he searches— “ _goddamn case_ …” Trails off. Shudders. Swipes the back of his wrist across his nose.

She blinks at him, and at the rush of honesty, and profanity, and all the ways he’s changed since prison.

Well. The most pressing issue first. “Do we need to pull over?” She’s watching him with a practiced eye. It doesn’t seem imminent. That’s something, at least.

He considers. Scrubs his face with his hands. “No.”

“You tell me if we do. Last time you ate?”

A groan. Curling in on himself. “God, don’t talk about food.”

“Sorry.” She’s got a hand on his back, and he’s not pulling away. “I’ve got some stuff in the trunk, painkillers, in my bag, but honestly you’ll probably feel worse if you take them without eating something first.”

His lips are cracking, pulled tight between his teeth. “So I guess I’m fucked.”

JJ draws her hand up his back to the nape of his neck, under his hair where it’s gotten long. Presses the backs of her fingers to his cheek, then his temple, then back to his cheek. There’s stubble under her fingers, and that’s new and different; they’re all growing up, getting old, a decade and a half gone and _god_ , wasn’t he just 22, stepping into the jet for the first time with that look of terror and wonder?

“Hmm.” It’s one of those borderline things, something she’d know in an instant for Henry or Michael or Will, but it’s not like she spends a lot of time cuddled up with Spencer, so, yeah. Borderline. “You’re warm, but I don’t think it’s really a fever yet.” She wishes she could take back that last word. Inviting badness in.

He just shrugs, and it seems like genuine uncertainty. Stress fucks with his ability to process the world.

Simmons is glancing their way. “Everything okay?”

It’s Reid who sits up, JJ’s hands falling back to her lap, and says, “Everything’s fine.”

Reid stares out the window and Simmons catches JJ’s eye. She gives him a look that’s meant to convey _Who knows?_ and _Drop it_ and _No, of course he’s not anywhere close to fine_ and probably fails at all three.

They pass the sign marking the town line. It’s 1:52 p.m.

. . .  
. . .

There are ten conversations happening at once in the small police department conference room, so when the words “they found the body” cut through the chaos, it takes a moment to sort out _whose_ body, and in that moment, JJ can’t breathe.

“Ryan Campbell,” Tara clarifies, off JJ’s confused look. “State Police found his car off a logging road, his body inside. Strangled.”

JJ consults the board. The man looking back at her from a photo pulled from the internet is short, but solidly built. “The unsub has some strength, then.”

Tara nods, then delivers the blow: “The M.E. hasn’t had time to work up a full report, but body temp suggests that Ryan Campbell was killed last night, possibly at early as 7:30 p.m.”

JJ hisses through her teeth, and Rossi, who’s overheard, shakes his head. Reid half-falls into a chair. Alvez is closest, and he crouches low and close, hand on Reid’s bicep, voice steady but too quiet to understand. Reid’s whole body is tense, like it’s taking all his strength not to pull away from the touch. There’s this flash of a parallel dimension where it’s not Alvez at all, and JJ’s stomach twists.

Emily’s assigning sets of people to go to the coroner and the car in the woods, and it’s not a coincidence when she chooses Lewis-Simmons and Alvez-Rossi, respectively, leaving Prentiss and JJ and Reid at the office. Emily steps out to talk to the police chief, and they’re alone.

She tries to watch without watching, to let him have some space. His arms slowly tighten across his chest, fingertips grazing the spot where Luke’s hand had been. Eyes far away like Penelope’s are, sometimes, when she’s staring off with words dying on her lips, like the right incantations could bring back the past.

Some people have a gravity like the sun, and the way they burn blinds and wounds, the collateral damage of incandescent love. To lose them is to be knocked out of orbit.

Untethered. That’s what he’s been since Morgan left.

It’s threatening to bring her to her knees, right there on the dull, dun carpet of the conference room floor. She wants to channel her helpless, formless anger into something tangible, to give it a hilt and a whetted edge, to find the center of their pain. To sink her weapon into the secret soft places that only long friendship can reveal.

She swallows her guilt and tries to direct her anger where it really belongs. Maps and photos and coordinates and timelines. Nebulous unsubs whose unarmored bellies are still protected by the dark.

Emily strides back into the room, stopping in front of Reid.

“Okay.” Full-on BAU chief mode, now. “Reid, I know you’re not feeling well, but I have to ask: Can you keep working? Because the next step is integrating the new information with our maps.” What’s unspoken is, _And you’re the only one who could do that fast enough to give us any kind of a chance._

When he looks up at her, his face is pale but his eyes are hard. “Yes.”

Emily nods. “Okay. Let’s go.” 

. . .  
. . .

The sun sets early in New Hampshire in the post-time-change fall, and the streetlights are on sooner than seems possible, ratcheting up the sense of urgency. Someone brings in food, and they eat it one-handed while pouring over maps and histories and whiteboards. Timothy’s mother Lauren is there, tear-streaked, and JJ and Tara interview her, again, now that they know for sure what the case really is. JJ lets Tara do most of the talking. She doesn’t think she can keep her voice from giving way.

It’s 7:15, and there’s a sick thrum in the room.

7:30. Eyes glance up to the clock, but no one stops working.

Emily calls it at 10:00 p.m. They all know from long experience that you have to, at some point; sleep and a few hours away and maybe some real food are all necessary parts of working on serial crime.

Doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel a little like giving up.

. . .  
. . .

Their hotel overlooks the water. She can’t remember the name of the lake. Something with a “W.” Maybe two somethings with “W;” different names, neither familiar enough to stick.

Prentiss had reminded them, and JJ knows, intellectually, that actually getting some sleep is going to better serve the victims and families than trying to go flat out for a week straight, but even after midnight, she can’t wind down. She’d talked to Will, briefly, and had even gotten to hear Michael, who’d been curled on Will’s chest when she called and whose sleep-noises came through the phone loud and clear. It helped.

“Give Henry a kiss for me, too?”

“Of course, babe.” A yawn, big enough to pop his jaw. _Good night_ s, harder than ever. No promises of being home soon.

She’s pacing the room when she hears coughing through the wall, trying to be muffled but utterly failing. Reid. Footsteps, paralleling hers, so he’s still awake, too. She hesitates, then drapes the blanket from the bed around her shoulders, sticks her room key and her phone into her pj pants pockets, and slips out into the hallway in her socks.

Reid opens the door as soon as she knocks: hair like a lightning strike, cheeks flushed. He’s still in his dress pants and shirt, collar open and sleeves loosely rolled, sweater and tie nowhere to be seen and dress shoes haphazard by the door. His mismatched socks are pink and green and incongruously bright in the artificial light from the hall. “Hi.” He turns his back on her almost immediately, leaving her to close the door behind herself, and he’s pacing again, coughing closed-mouthed and ragged.

“Spencer—” It comes out sounding like a warning, and that’s not how she meant it. His steps stutter but he doesn’t turn around. There’s light from the bathroom, but nowhere else. She turns on the nearest lamp, and she can see his wince in the pull of his neck. A few more clicks gets her the dimmest setting, and it looks like it hurts him a little less.

“Spence.” Gentle, this time, and that does the trick, gets him to turn her way. “Hey.”

There’s mucus trailing down his lip. She pulls three tissues from the box next to the bed and hands them over, then looks away to allow for some pretense of privacy. He gets that issue taken care of but, in the process, forgets that he was trying not to cough, and she has to lead him back to the bed, hands steady on his arms.

“You’re a mess.” Gentle, with a wry smile and sympathetic eyes.

He tenses and looks away, and she sighs. Takes his hand, the one not clutching a wad of tissues, and sits down on the bed next to him.

“I’m sorry.” Lets the blanket fall from her shoulders.

“No, you’re right, I am a mess. I couldn’t even find him today. And now—” he breaks off.

And now Timothy is almost certainly gone, lost and waiting to be found in the vast northern woods under icy stars, and all they ever had of him was photographs and his mother’s stories, and her tears.

“I know.”

There’s silence, a moment of Reid sniffling, and another decision point.

“May I?”

He eyes her raised hand and then nods, resigned, and she knows she’s being let in when no one else would— well, no one else who’s here; no one who’s not far away even when they’re at home, engulfed in his new wife and new baby in the natural, inevitable, maddening way of all newlyweds and new parents.

She sweeps her hand up under Spencer’s bangs where they’re falling in front of his eyes. He’s been so far away for so long. Sometimes _before_ feels like another life. They’ve all lived so many lives, circling back again and again. They’re close together in the dimness, his breathing ragged in her ear, and the moment of contact, of completing the circuit, is a magnesium sear through her heart. There’s so much she hasn’t been able to save him from: kidnap and torture and the horrors of prison, carotid blood spilling out across an industrial laundry-room floor— she couldn’t save him from any of that, but this, _this_ she can do.

“There’s that fever.” Murmured, only half-meant to be heard. She lets him breathe into the touch for a moment, then traces her fingers down his jawline. It’s multitudes too warm and his breath smells of sweet sickness and he’s pressing into her palm like a cat, breath catching like he’s never had this before, and she wonders if she was the last one to do this for him, _years_ ago now, or if that was Morgan. She wasn’t privy to everything between them, but she can take a guess that maybe it was him. Spence grimaces when she gently probes at the swollen places under his jaw, both hands now, but not when she puts gentle pressure on his sinuses with her thumbs, and she counts that as a small win. He starts to cough again and she lets her hands drop so he can turn away. When he turns back around, he’s panting slightly, with a sheen of sweat on his face.

“I don’t have much in my bag, but I do have some Advil. Might take the edge off; help you sleep. You had food at the station?” He shivers, and nods. “Okay. I’m going to go get that, and you’re going to change, because sleeping in your work clothes is never a good plan.” He blinks down at his shirtsleeves like he’d forgotten there was a state of being other than mid-case and frantic. “I’ll be right back.”

It only takes a moment find the pills in her purse, but she hangs back to give him a minute to get himself together. Scrubs at her face with her hands and tries not to look at the time when she pulls out her phone to text Emily.

_Reid’s not doing great… do we need him first thing tomorrow?_

The reply comes exactly as fast as she’d expected. No one’s sleeping well tonight. _No. Tell him we’ll call him if we need him._ A pause, and another ding: _When we need him._

 _. . ._  
_. . ._

They make it through the morning before they call Reid in. He’d faded fast the night before, as if the act of finally changing out of his work clothes and into pajamas was enough to flip the switch and let the illness and exhaustion take over. She’d tucked him into bed— flashbacks to the months when Emily was dead-not-dead, Spencer crying himself out on Will and JJ’s living room couch— and had finally fallen into her own bed by 1:00. They were back at the police station by 9:00, which, well. Could have been worse.

On the way in she texts Garcia, because if there’s one person who can find a workaround for the lack of app-based instant-service-delivery that they’re all so used to in D.C., it’s Penelope. Forty-five minutes later she’s a got a text back that there’s an entrepreneurial young woman named Madison living in town who’s on her way to the drug store and the grocery store and their hotel, and she exhales.

_You’re magic, Garcia._

_Anything for my favorites._ A beat, and a new message coming in: _You’re all my favorites. But you and Boy Wonder might be my most favorite._ Another beat. _Don’t tell the others._

When Reid comes in at lunchtime, he’s pale, but put together. JJ suspects that Emily or— on second thought— Dave probably told the others to let him pretend everything is fine, and, to her relief, they do.

. . .  
. . .

The call, the inevitable, horrible call, comes while they’re clustered around the laptop, tossing ideas at Garcia so fast she’s starting to fray, and everyone’s getting short with each other, knowing that time has run out, but they don’t stop, can’t stop; on the other side of the glass conference room wall the locals are doing the same, and Lauren Núñez, formerly Campbell, is sitting in a plastic chair in the middle of the chaos looking very, very alone.

Emily is the one to answer the phone, back turned to the room, and when she turns around, they know before she says a word. Alvez throws down his pencil and Tara sinks into a chair. Rossi keeps staring at the map that’s taken over the conference room table like it’s going to relinquish some answers now that it’s too late. Simmons’ gaze is fixed through the window on the office beyond, where the police chief is moving toward Ms. Núñez, about to guide her into a private room to deliver the news, but she’s already shaking her head in horrified denial. Reid’s hyperventilating. JJ can hear it, but she can’t seem to move.

From beyond the glass, through the frozen silence, Ms. Núñez starts to scream.

. . .  
. . .

Bile rising in her throat. Breathing through it behind closed eyes. She wants—

She wants her boys in her arms, and she wants

Time to reverse and she wants

The kind of safety she lost at eleven—

  
_Inhale, exhale. Set your face in stone._

_Eyes up._

_Go on._

. . .  
. . .

  
They’re back to the maps. There were roadblocks on as many roads into the park as the state police could cover (with help from sheriff’s offices and the park rangers and anyone else they could get), but the scale of the thing was just too much, and the M.E.’s report suggests they may have been an hour or two too late either way. Timothy’s body was found in a gully, laid out on soft moss under the low branches of a pine tree; it wasn’t hidden, and it wasn’t hard to find, but it was far from the place the boys had been five years before, if similarly serene. Through the pictures, JJ can almost feel the crunch of frost on the approach.

“It’s harder than you’d think to carry a forty-pound kid when they’re—” _dead weight,_ the phrase coming automatic and sickening. “… When they’re not holding onto you. He’s strong enough to subdue the fathers, and to carry the boys off the main trail over some difficult terrain.”

“Height could be a factor, too,” Simmons adds. “He’s probably taller than average, works out—”

“—Or has a job that requires manual labor,” Rossi finishes.

Tara is nodding. “The way he’s laying them out certainly seems to show remorse.”

Emily turns back to the photographs on the board, four sets of fathers and sons. “We hadn’t thought much of the fact that the first three sets of victims were white, because the state is, what, ninety-plus-percent white?”

There’s an expectant beat that goes unfilled. All eyes turn to Reid. He looks up slowly, and blinks. Prentiss has just opened her mouth to go on when he finally returns the volley: “Ninety-three-point-nine percent in the 2010 census.” His voice is hoarse, but certain.

“Right.” A moment of imbalance, and then Prentiss falls back into their well-established rhythm. “And then Timothy’s Hispanic heritage threw us off, but if someone had only seen him and his dad together, they might not have known.”

“The boys have different hair and eye colors,” JJ chimes in, “but similar builds. In spite of their age range, they’re all about the same size.”

“That, combined with some mannerisms or other factors we don’t know of yet, could have been enough for him to feel like they were surrogates.” Tara, again. “And there’s the obvious connection of each one being with their father or step-father at the time of the abduction.”

“So,” Rossi says, bringing it back together, “A man who is taking away young sons from their fathers, leaving them helpless. We can’t rule out the idea that the parents are the primary targets and that he had intended to leave the fathers alive to suffer. Either way, we should start by looking for men who have lost sons in that age range, starting five years ago and earlier.”

“And ‘lost’ could mean death or missing children or custody battles. Garcia—” JJ can tell that Prentiss has the whole list of search terms queued up in her brain, but she’s hardly gotten the word out before Garcia replies.

“Already there, oh captain my captain.” Long nails on a keyboard over the speakerphone. “The list of white men in New Hampshire who lost custody of their children, including at least one son in the 5-7 age range, five or more years ago is… extensive. Missing children: none that would fit. Deaths… a short but very sad list.”

“Send us what you’ve got.”

“Done and done.”

. . .  
. . .

  
She gets Reid alone just as the sun is starting to set by volunteering then both for coffee duty, on the basis that she can’t carry seven cups of fancier-than-police-station coffee by herself. It’s only a couple of blocks to the quaint coffee shops on Main Street, but they drive anyway. They’ve got a couple of vehicles of their own now, arranged through the FBI field office in Boston, and the freedom feels good. There’s control in being behind the wheel. She takes the long way around. Pulls over on a residential street once they’re out of sight of the police station. Puts the SUV in park.

“JJ—” His voice gives out, and he settles for staring out the passenger-side window instead of looking at her.

She’s running through the list of everything she could ask, trying to figure out what would get him to talk, and settles on waiting him out. Works on kids, works on unsubs, works on friends.

In the silence his breath is uneven, stuttering and staggering. She can hear the congestion in his chest.

The standoff is finally broken by a series of harsh sneezes that look painful enough that they end with her hand on his shoulder, and she’s murmuring, _“Okay. Okay.”_

He’s shuddering and grimacing and fumbling in his coat pocket for rumpled but apparently clean tissues. She sighs. He’s fever-warm. Again.

“Is it time for Round 2?”

He blinks at her, eyebrows drawn in pain and confusion and concern, like he knows that’s supposed to mean something to him. Like he’s worried that maybe he’s missing time.

“Garcia told me she got someone to deliver you some meds.”

“Oh. Yeah. Probably.”

“And they are…?”

He sighs. “Back at the hotel.”

“Okay. We’ll swing by there first.”

It’s a quick stop. Reid doesn’t protest when she gestures for him to hand over his room key and leaves him behind in the SUV, engine running, heat on. She jogs up the stairwell rather than waiting for the elevator, and it feels good to move, to pound up the steps and feel her body work after hours and hours of poring over maps and casefiles and crime scene photos of dead kids. The plastic grocery bag of medicine is on the dresser, and she adds an oversize box of tissues from the other bag before jogging back down the steps. When she closes the driver’s-side door behind her, Reid blinks like he’d been nearly asleep. She starts pulling unopened boxes from the bag.

“What did you take?” The seal on the bottle of painkillers is broken, but it seems to be the only one.

He shrugs, eyes closed, like coming up with an answer is more work than he can handle.

She looks over the boxes and bottles again. “Well, Garcia covered all the bases, so— symptoms?”

No response.

“Spence?” And maybe a little impatience bleeds through, because he’s a grown adult and if he can’t take care of himself he could at least make it easier for her to do the job, but mostly because there’s the specter of another phone call looming over her shoulder, the one that says the next kid has disappeared, and the clock is ticking, loudly, in her ear.

She looks up and he’s—

—he’s so fucking fragile, new muscle and all; he’s trembling, tears coming up in his eyes, and she can hear him breathing in ragged gasps, and if they weren’t separated by the console in the middle of the SUV she would pull him into her arms and never let go.

It’s enough to mute the clock.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Soft. “Okay. I got you.”

There’s a cheap digital thermometer at the bottom of the bag, unopened. She strips off the packaging and hands it over. Reid flushes with embarrassment as much as fever, but accepts it and sticks it under his tongue. By the time it beeps he’s gasping for air, nose too blocked to breathe through. 102.1. Another touch to his forehead, and yeah, that feels true. She clicks her tongue in reflexive sympathy and runs her fingers through his hair.

“We can go right back upstairs.” Even as she’s saying the words, she knows he’ll never agree. “Climb under the covers, get Madison to bring you more soup, keep your germs to yourself.” A last-ditch guilt trip. She unboxes a blister pack of cold-and-flu meds and pushes the pills through their foil into her palm.

“Everyone’s already exposed.” His voice is giving out in the way it does, sometimes; under better circumstances, it makes people go weak at the knees. “The plane, the conference room… too late now.” He wipes his nose on the back of his hand and she opens the box of tissues and hands those to him as well. He meets her eyes. “You need me.” It’s a hard-edged challenge, followed up by a messy sneeze, and another, and a third.

“I never said we didn’t need you.” He’s melting her goddamn heart. “I’m saying you’re exhausted and burning up and so fucking contagious, Spence, and the fact that you’re fighting me on that means you’re not thinking straight.”

Insulting his intelligence-slash-mental-health is always a good way to piss him off, but JJ’s phone rings before he can reply.

Prentiss. “We need you back here. Now.” The click of the disconnection.

JJ’s dizzy with the weight of it all. “Last chance.”

Reid has gone even paler than she thought possible. He knows what the phone call means. “Like hell.”

“Fuck.” She closes her eyes and breathes for the count of three, then turns off the parts of her brain that make her a good mom and a good friend and hands over the pills and a bottle of water. “Don’t touch any doorknobs, don’t breathe on the locals, don’t pass out.”

His voice is a whisper. “Yes, ma’am.”

. . .  
. . .

  
They come back to a flurry of activity. Prentiss has her cell phone to one ear and a landline to the other, so JJ turns to Matt. “What happened?”

He’s looking Reid up and down, concerned but willing to let the case take precedence. “Two hunters were up in their tree stand when they saw a commotion on a dirt road. They chased off the unsub with their rifles after he’d knocked out the dad but before he could take the kid. Dad’s in the ICU in a medically-induced coma. Rossi and Alvez are interviewing the hunters, but it sounds like just like all the surviving fathers, they didn’t get anything identifying. Just height and build. He was wearing a mask. The kid, Ben, got checked out at the hospital and released. He’s here with his mom now, about to be interviewed by Lewis.”

Prentiss appears, only one phone pressed to her ear now. “The kid’s only four. Youngest in his kindergarten class. His birthday is next week.”

JJ goes cold, and shakes it off. _Eyes up. Go on._

It’s hard to interview kids that young. They’ll tell you the truth, but it’s the truth as _they_ understand it, filtered through their own limited life experiences. They’ll start talking about a birthday party and you have no idea what it means until the parent steps in and says, _A two-year-old fell into the pool at that party,_ and then you make the connection that the kid means he saw a child nearly die, or that he saw something that left adults in panicked-relieved tears, or that his mom was holding him so tight and shaking with sobs and he just wanted to run off for more cake; that _Like Alexandra’s birthday party_ means _trauma,_ means _near-death experience,_ means _ambulance lights, sirens piercing the summer evening,_ means all these words the kid can’t say. Or maybe it means _I ate cotton candy ice cream_. Kids are funny that way.

“JJ, I need you in with Lewis.” Prentiss disconnects from her call, but doesn’t put down the phone. “Reid, sit down. You and Simmons work the map.” She’s back on her cell again. “Garcia? Let me give you the updated descriptions to narrow the search.”

JJ nods, too late; Emily has already moved on. She hesitates on her way to the door. Reid is sweating through his shirt. Matt opens a new water bottle. Sticks it in Spencer’s hand. Presses him into a chair. Pulls up the map like everything’s fine _(nothing is fine)_ and nods to JJ, grim but reassuring. Starts filling in Reid on what they have so far.

She takes a deep breath and forces herself to leave. Stops in the bathroom to wash off the Reid-germs before she meets the kid, up to the elbows like she’s scrubbing in for surgery. Splashes water on her face. Heads down the hall.

. . .  
. . .

Ben is big for his age but still so, so small. When she knocks on the door of the interview room and lets herself in, he’s trying to explain the plot of a movie to Lewis, who is nodding encouragingly but clearly not following.

“I’ve seen that one,” is her introduction. “My son Henry loved it.” Her voice doesn’t catch. She manages a smile.

“Yeah!” He brightens. “And the guy was driving, and he was so fast, and the police came and got him and taked him to jail.” He frowns, sudden and wavering. “Is my daddy in jail?”

“He’s in the hospital, like you were, remember?” She tries to relax into her role, to ignore the ticking clock that restarted the moment the unsub was denied the boy. “The police came to help you and your dad, and now the doctors are taking care of him.” She stops there. Doesn’t make promises she can’t keep.

Ben considers that, and JJ takes the moment to tell Ben and his mother, “I’m Jennifer. I work with Tara.”

She gets back a whispered, “Rachel” from Ben’s mom in the corner. She smiles at the woman, and carefully does not imagine herself in Rachel’s place.

She picks back up on the dangling thread. “You said the guy in the movie was going fast. Was Daddy driving fast, or slow?”

“ _Daddy_ was going slow. The _bad guy_ was going fast.” It’s condescending in a way only 4-year-olds can manage. He looks up again: “Is _he_ in jail?”

Tara supplies the answer. “We’re working on it.”

“Tell me more about when Daddy was going slow and the bad guy was going fast.”

“Well, I was eating McDonald’s and Daddy wasn’t, because he eatted before but _I_ got a special treat, and we were driving and the bad guy drived up behind us really fast, like _vroom_ —” he demonstrates with his hand— “and Daddy said some swears that he’s not supposed to say and then the car crashed off the side of the road.”

“Which car crashed?”

“Our car.” He stops, and his eyes fill with tears. “And then I don’t wanna talk about it.”

JJ glances at Tara, who steps in. “That makes sense, it sounds very scary. Remember what we talked about in the beginning, though?”

Ben nods uncertainly, and Tara goes on: “We need to find the man who hurt your dad. So we need to know… what happened next?”

Ben abandons his seat and crawls up into his mom’s lap, thumb hovering at his mouth, reverting years in the space of seconds. Rachel holds him, and weeps silently, and manages to sound almost steady when she reinforces the question: “What happened next, baby?”

He’s got his head buried under his mother’s chin, but he takes a shaky breath and says, fast like it will hurt less if he gets it over with, if he rips the Band-aid off, “The bad guy came and he hit Daddy on the head and Daddy didn’t move, I was yelling at him but he didn’t wake up, and then the bad guy opened my door and he was gonna get me but then the police were there, they were yelling and they had guns and the bad guy ran away and got in his car and drove away so fast but the police didn’t get him, they got me and got Daddy and called more polices, and the police cars were loud and we went in a ambulance but they wouldn’t let me see Daddy and then I was in the hospital and then Mommy was there and she was crying and then we came here.”

“The first police,” JJ asks, just to make sure, “what were they wearing?”

“Camo. And orange. And they had big guns.”

The hunters, then. Okay. “Ben, when the bad guy came to your window, and opened your door… can you tell us about that? What did he look like?”

Ben shakes his head, burrowing further into Rachel’s chest.

“You’re safe; he can’t get you. We just need to go find him. The police will go find him. You’ll stay here with Mommy. You’ll be safe.”

He pauses for a moment, and shrinks, and says, “He didn’t know my name.”

JJ blinks, trying to translate, but it’s Tara who catches on. “Ben, did he say something when he opened the door?”

“He was calling me Ollie, like Aunt Sarah’s dog. Why did he call me a dog?” His face crumbles, and his voice breaks— “Why did he hurt Daddy? Mommy?” He’s turning to her, and they’re both giving way— “Mommy, why did he hurt Daddy? Where’s—” Searching the room, as if he’ll be able to find him here. “Daddy, I want—” and he’s wailing now, hyperventilating, four years old and terrified— “I want my Daddy, I want my Daddy, I want my Daddy....” Inconsolable, tearing at JJ’s lungs, cracking open her ribs and exposing her heart, and she’s eternally grateful to Tara when she says, “Let’s take a break,” and, “JJ, would you be able to get some water?”

She nods, and makes her escape, and leans back against the closed door and orders herself to breathe.

. . .  
. . .

There are bottles of water in the conference room, she knows that much for sure, so that’s where she goes, back in work mode, trying not to shake. Prentiss is with the police chief in the bullpen, looking incredibly serious, and Simmons and Reid are poring over a map. Simmons sees her first. “You okay?”

She swallows. “I just… need to get some water for the little boy and his mom.”

Matt is up in an instant. “I got it. Reid can tell you what we’ve found.”

She nods, grateful. Takes Simmons’ chair. Waits until the door closes behind him, and allows herself a single sob.

“Hard case.” A statement, not a question. His voice is a wreck, almost too low to hear.

“Yeah.” She shakes her head. Clears her throat. Sits up straighter. “Matt said you found something?”

This close, she can feel the heat. He’s burning beside her; they’re all falling to pieces; and all she can do is press on.

“Yeah.” He hits the redial button on the conference table phone. “Garcia, you still there?”

“Sure am. What can I do for your unfortunately infected self?”

Spencer ignores the gentle dig. “Can you tell—” and that’s it, that’s his voice; his breath catches and all he can do is cough, hunched and exhausted and hurting. JJ rubs his back and jumps in.

“Hey, Penelope. It sounds like there’s news?”

“Some. Which is better than no news. But not as good as definitive news. Anyway—“ A deep breath over the line. “It’s not much, but there’s a connection between the two… final resting places.” A pause, and JJ can imagine Garcia considering whether that’s the right term to use, and deciding to go on. “They’re both places that locals go that tourists don’t know about. Secret swimming holes during the summer, pockets of perfect foliage during the fall… I don’t know, our Boy Wonder made a guess based on geography and I confirmed it via private Facebook groups for locals trying to protect their secret spaces.” Spencer straightens a little bit at the acknowledgment that it wouldn’t have happened without him there. “They also spend an unreasonable amount of time arguing about who gets to be a ‘local.’”

JJ thinks back to her own upbringing. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Well, let’s combine that with a new piece of info— the unsub called Ben ‘Ollie’ when he was trying to pull him out of the car.”

Garcia gives a quiet _“ohh,”_ and starts typing even as she ends the call: “I’ll hit you back when I’ve got something.”

The line goes dead and JJ sits back in her chair, trying to come down. She stops to get a good look at Reid for the first time since they came back. He’s breathing in shallow gasps, rubbing at his chest. She gets a hand in his hair at his temple, wordless. He lets his eyes close. She resists the urge to promise him that it’s all going to be okay. Settles on, “We’re almost there.” He nods against her palm.

The ring of the phone brings them back, and Reid starts to attention as JJ answers on speaker. “You got something?”

“Do I ever. Oliver Hawthorne, age six, died of leukemia eight years ago. It was supposed to be treatable, great prognosis as far as these things go, but in his case it hit hard and fast and he was gone within months of being diagnosed.”

“He have a father?” JJ knows the answer.

“Sawyer, thirty-eight, works construction in the area, no known address. Stayed with Oliver’s mother for two years after their son’s death; the divorce was finalized six weeks before the first murder.”

“Vehicle?” Spence whispers.

“Sending that info to all of you now."

. . .  
. . .

It spins around her like a dream, the end: Rossi and Alvez in the car, in the dark, closing in from one side as Prentiss and Simmons close in from the other. Lewis re-interviewing the boy, searching for some last clue that will seal the unsub’s fate. JJ listening in on the radio to the chase, staring at the map. Reid trying to stand and failing, meeting the ground hard in stumbling slow-motion. She follows him down, holds him close, pulls the map from the table, goes on. Garcia’s voice on the phone, revealing the unsub’s twists and turns. Everyone speaking with practiced calm.

The others find Sawyer Hawthorne driving back roads, still looking for boys he can save; still looking for the perfect child, the one who will answer to _Ollie,_ the one who won’t fight, the one he won’t have to lay out, silent and still, on the frost-hard forest floor. He gives himself up in an eddy of wordless keening grief that reaches through the radio and pulls the oxygen from the room, from the valley; brings the mountains crashing down around them in a mist of frozen, paper-thin air.

. . .  
. . .

Prentiss wants Reid in the hospital, or at least urgent care, but he’s strong enough to spit out _“Fuck, no,”_ and that’s sufficient proof-of-life for Emily to grudgingly agree to send him back to the hotel instead. Simmons ends up pulling Reid up off the ground and going back with him and JJ, just to be safe. Alvez had tried. He’s sweet, and strong, and he’d hidden his hurt well when Reid had pushed him away. Someday, someone will explain it to him: how it wasn’t just Garcia who couldn’t abide the change; how it was just his bad luck to follow someone as luminescent as Derek Fucking Morgan; how the best he can do is just keep being there, wait it out. For today, all of her words are used up. She takes the backseat, forehead on the window, and stares unseeing at the passing streets.

No stairs, this time. Reid leans heavily on the elevator rail, but he’s up on his own power. He falls into his bed without turning on the lights, and Matt hovers in the doorway. “Should I stay?”

Words. She swallows. Licks her lips. “I’m going to work from here; I think that’s enough.” It doesn’t seem like anything’s enough, but it doesn’t make sense to have half the team here when there’s work to be done at the police station to wrap up the case.

Matt gives her a sympathetic smile, and she has to remind herself that he has kids, too; that this is hard for everyone. There’s just something about this case that makes it feel like her world is coming apart at the seams. “Call if you need anything. _Anything._ I’m fifteen minutes away.” He squeezes her shoulder, and the touch feels solid and real. She nods.

And then he’s gone, and autopilot kicks in. Water, cool washcloth, close the blinds. Convince Spencer to trade his work clothes for pajamas. Sit on the other bed, staring at the closed curtains while he changes, his labored breathing heavy in the air. When she hears him climb under the covers, she comes back and sits next to him on the bed.

“You don’t have to stay.” He sounds just a little stronger, now that he doesn’t have to stay upright.

“I know, Spence.” She’s quiet for a moment. “I… don’t really want to be alone.”

He reaches back and takes her hand, and she slides down next to him on top of the comforter. Forehead to his back, wrapped around him, fingers intertwined. He’s impossibly warm through his soft t-shirt. She listens to the rattle in his lungs.

“I know this isn’t…” _who you wanted wrapped around you in your bed._ She starts again. “I’m sorry. That he left. That things couldn’t stay the same.”

He’s quiet, and still, and she’s not sure if she’s pushed too far. Finally— “I thought…” He trails off and coughs, low and aching. “It doesn’t matter. I misunderstood.”

She shakes her head behind him in the dark. “You didn’t imagine him caring about you. That was real. That was true. _Is_ true. It’s just…” It’s just life, sometimes; just marriage, just parenthood, just moving on. It doesn’t matter. Reasons don’t take away the pain.

“Asymmetry.” He’s fading.

She pulls him tight. “I know.”

He shivers, and the rest stays unsaid, and he slips down into fitful sleep. She turns over onto her back next to him, a steadying hand on his hip, and lets the tears fall, silent, trailing into her hair.

She texts Will through the haze of tears, and he’s there, far away and underneath her fingertips, and she turns away from Spencer and sobs.

. . .  
. . .

She wakes to uncoordinated movement. It’s midnight, and she’s still in her work clothes on top of the bedspread, and Spencer is struggling to get out from under the sheets. She pulls them away and he stumbles to the bathroom. She sits on the bed and waits, and he re-emerges, coughing and sniffling and dazed. She never did do any of the work she’d told Simmons she would. It’ll have to wait for D.C. They’ll go back in the morning. Early afternoon at the latest, if there are loose ends to wrap up in town. (There are always loose ends: uncertain prognoses and unburied loved ones and futures shattered by loss. They leave anyway, every time.)

“You okay if I go back to my room?”

He nods, eyes already closing.

“If you need anything, I’m just on the other side of the wall.” She pulls the covers around him and leans down to brush his hair back and kiss his temple. He squeezes her hand, and she slips out the door.

Alone, she can’t sleep. She calls Will, even though it’s late. “I just needed to hear your voice.”

He talks her down, puts her on video, walks her through the house, shows her the sleeping kids.

“This case…” she says, finally, interrupting his story about Michael pulling all the pots and pans out of the cupboard to use as a drumset, Animal-style, aided and abetted by Henry.

“Yeah?”

“Will, if we can’t…” Her voice breaks, and she tries again, but it’s a lost cause. “I can’t keep you safe; if neither of us can keep _them_ safe…”

“Babe,” Will murmurs, and it just makes her cry harder. “You’re not wrong that there’s danger in the world, but we’re okay. I’m safe. The boys are safe. Don’t forget that I know a little something about dealin’ with bad guys, too.”

It’s true, it’s all true, but it doesn’t stop the words: “Maybe I should just leave.”

He’s quiet for a minute. “You know I wouldn’t mind having you home at night, but I don’t think one a.m. is the right time to be makin’ major life decisions.”

She nods, and looks at the time, and ends the call. Strips out of her work clothes and gets in bed. She doesn’t want to try to sleep; that way lies nightmares. She opens up the Scrabble app on her phone. Emily’s screen name floats in front of her, and she exhales. Makes the first move. Is grateful not to be alone in the dark.

. . .  
. . .

The hotel's free breakfast is laid out in an alcove off the lobby: underripe fruit, oversweet pastries, single-serve yogurt that’s somehow neon pink. They arrive one or two at a time, coming down in the elevator with a handful of early-morning swimmers in bathing suits and towels. The BAU team, with their slacks and blazers and button-down shirts, are somehow the ones who look out of place. The hallway air is choked with chlorine. The eggs and orange juice taste like the powder they used to be. She feels tenuous, worn thin, like her body might give up at any moment and collapse to the floor. She forces herself to breathe. _Eyes up. Go on._

Reid hasn’t appeared by the time the rest of the team is ready to pack up and head back into town. She puts together a plate, toast and jam and reconstituted eggs, makes her way back upstairs.

“Are we leaving?” He’s a ghost, sweating and swaying in the doorway. His shirt is buttoned wrong.

She pushes him into the room, gently, and put down the plate on the desk. “ _We’re_ going back to the police station. _You’re_ staying here.” She tries to press him down into the desk chair, but his shoulders go stiff beneath her palms and his eyes are sharp behind their fever sheen.

“Fuck that, JJ, I’m _going_. I’m not a child; I’m on this team; I’m seeing this thing through. You need me,” he says, again, and then his voice breaks— “Stop fucking saying you don’t.”

She blinks at him, and sits down on the bed. “I’m sorry.” Quiet.

A beat, and then he drops down in the desk chair across from her, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

“We always need you, Spence.” She gets a hand on his knee, his elbow, his arm. “ _Always._ But I promise you, we can make things work when you need some time.”

More silence, cut with the rasp of his breath. Then: “They’re making me. Take some time.”

“I know.” She takes his hand in hers, and waits.

“I want…” His eyes are far off, searching, again. Finally, he drops his gaze. The words are barely a whisper. “I don’t fucking know what I want.”

She pulls him close and they rock, a little bit, like a slow-dance to a song neither of them can hear, until his forehead is heavy on her shoulder, a muted burn through fabric to skin.

“Okay. If we're going, we should go. I’ve got your bag. You rebutton your shirt.”

. . .  
. . .

The police station is the kind of quiet that sets in after a wake: scattered chairs and too many casseroles and the static of shell-shocked grief. The locals are at their desks, trying to write up the incident, to bring order to the chaos of the last few days. The last few years.

In the conference room, it’s more of the same. Cataloging. Reporting. Trying to create a narrative out of the worst days of all of these people’s lives. JJ gives up on staring at a sentence she can’t bring herself to finish and stands to unpin the pictures and maps from the board. Alvez joins her and does the same.

“He okay?” Quiet, head tilting toward Reid, who’s staring at his screen, unmoving.

She nods tiredly. “Yeah. The meds should be kicking in soon.”

“Hope so,” he says, and it’s nothing but compassion. “I had to fly with a sinus infection once, and it _sucked_. The pressure changes hurt like hell.”

“He’s strong.” She watches him, again. “He’s been through a lot.”

Luke nods. “That’s what I’m learning.” He takes off another picture and drops the thumbtacks into their plastic box. “And you?”

“Me?”

His eyes are kind. “Are you okay? I know this case was… a lot.”

“I will be.” If she says it, it’ll be true. “Be good to get home.”

He squeezes her shoulder and turns back to the board.

. . .  
. . .

They fly back at noon. Reid takes the couch at the back of the plane and is out before they leave the ground. The meds must be doing their job. Alvez watches him for a minute, then pulls a blanket from his own bag and drapes in over him. Reid burrows in and exhales. Luke leaves his hand on Reid’s shoulder for a moment, then makes his way to the tiny galley kitchen. Comes back with two cups of coffee. Hands one to JJ, and goes back to his book. She smiles her thanks from across the aisle as her phone pings with an invitation to a new Scrabble game. Emily catches her eye and makes the first play. The only sound is the jet, and Lewis and Simmons’ quiet conversation, and the miles flying by. Putting themselves back together. Bringing order to the world.

They’re not even off the tarmac in D.C. when Prentiss tells them to go home. “The paperwork will still be there on Monday.” Or maybe there will be another call at 11 a.m. on Sunday; something that can’t wait. Either way, no one is arguing with the promise of home.

There are still casefiles to be locked in desks and forgotten possessions to collect. Garcia meets them in the bullpen. Reid is pale and coughing, but reasonably steady on his feet. Garcia hugs JJ’s shoulders from behind. Presses a theatrical kiss into her hair. “ _Mwah._ You’re amazing.” JJ starts to shake her head, but Garcia just squeezes her again before letting go. “I know this was a hard case. I’ve got him,” she adds, nodding toward Reid. “You go home.” She sidles up to Reid and pulls his laptop bag from his hands. Takes him by the shoulders. Steers him toward the door. “I’ll see you Monday morning,” she calls behind her, “and not one second before.”

Optimism. That’s the light that’s gone out of the world. She considers that on the drive home, blinking into the high-angled sun.

. . .  
. . .

Her boys are walking home from school when she pulls into the driveway, and Michael is reaching for her from his father’s arms before she’s even out of the car. They all meet in a tangled embrace, and then Henry pulls away to jump around them in circles, trying to tell her about every moment of his day. He’s an endless well of optimism, bright and shining in the darkness like his little brother’s smile. She breathes it in, Penelope’s warmth and Emily’s perseverance and Michael’s happy babbling and Henry’s wonder at the world. She resolves to have Spencer over for dinner as soon as he’s better. Pull him out into the sunshine. Remind them both that they’re not alone.

Will takes her face in his hand and kisses her, slow and deep. “You okay, babe?”

She nods, and the tears in her eyes are happy this time. “I am now.”

Another kiss in the sunshine, Michael in her arms and Henry at her side, hugging her leg and trying to pull her toward the house. Will smiles against her lips. “Welcome home.”

. . .  
. . .

 

 


End file.
